Knowledge Partners

August 27, 2006

"PE firms on recruitment drive for CEOs"

Economic Times has article on the trend of PE firms aggressively recruiting CEOs or CEOs-in-waiting for their portfolio companies.

Recently, Actis placed ex-MD Nokia Sanjeev Sharma in Phoenix Lamps, while Softbank Asia Infrastructure Fund (SAIF Partners) placed Sundeep Malhotra , ex-EVP Pepsico Foods, in TV18's home-shopping division . Similarly, Carlyle placed ex-CFO and chief risk officer at Infosys' Progeon, Ramesh Kamath , as CFO of QuEST Global and Infrastructure Development Finance placed ex-CEO , NetKraft, Anand Sudarshan, in Manipal Health Systems along with Narayana Swamy as the CFO. And there's more where they're coming from. Most PE firms have a 'cadre' CEOs waiting in their ranks - Actis has Rajeev Kaul, who joined them from Microsoft and Baring PE has Ajit Singh Karan, who joined from the liquid mosquito repellent brand, All Out. In fact, some headhunters claim to be working in tandem with PE firms to place CEOs.